Time for GOP to Clean Up Stadium Mess

It’s time for Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe
Deters to use his considerable influence and put the squeeze on Mike
Brown.

No, the Bengals owner hasn’t broken any
law — not unless engendering public outrage and being a prick have
recently been added as punishable offenses in the Ohio Revised Code.

We’ll explain Deters’ pivotal role in a
moment. First, some background on Brown.

Brown told an Enquirer sports
reporter during the Bengals’ annual media lunch July 26 that he
wouldn’t make any concessions on the team’s cushy lease for the
county-owned Paul Brown Stadium.

Hamilton County officials are desperately
seeking to renegotiate the lease because the county’s stadium
account is facing a $13.8 million deficit this year. The deficit
will jump to $25 million in a few years and could cumulatively total
more than $700 million by 2032, when the Bengals’ lease expires.

Unless the Bengals agree to some
concessions, county commissioners will have to cut some services to
residents, lay off some county workers or probably both to cover the
shortfall.

Brown, though, is unmoved.

“We made a deal with the county,” Brown
is quoted in The Enquirer. “We’ve lived up to it, and we expect
them to live up to their end of it. They are going to have to figure out
some other way.”

Back in 1996, county voters approved a
half-cent sales tax increase that was supposed to pay for the cost of
building new stadiums for the Bengals and the Reds. Brown and then-Reds
owner Marge Schott threatened to have the teams leave town unless
each received a new facility.

The tax hike was supposed to cover all
construction costs. Because tax revenues didn’t meet the unrealistic
growth estimates given by supporters, however, they’re actually nowhere
near enough to cover the massive construction debt still owed.

Also, the stadiums came in over budget.
Originally, supporters said both facilities could be built for $544
million. In reality, the Bengals stadium cost $458 million, while
the Reds ballpark cost $337 million. Hundreds of millions of
dollars more are due in interest charges.

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“He has no legal obligation to (make concessions), but he
should do it in light of how the economy has been and the burden placed
on the county.”

Among those stumping the hardest for the
stadium plan back in the ‘90s were the business community, the Hamilton
County Republican Party, conservative activist Chris Finney
(who liked a property tax rollback included in the deal) and The
Cincinnati Enquirer’s editorial page, then headed by Peter
Bronson.

Getting the two stadiums built was so
important to the local GOP, in fact, it would single-handedly determine
who the party would appoint to the Hamilton County Commission.

Steve Grote, a former Green
Township trustee, told CityBeat that he was approached by
then-County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus and Bengals’ attorney Stuart
Dornette in 1996 about filling a vacancy on the commission and
becoming the second vote needed to approve the sales tax issue and later
the stadium lease.

While discussing the close ties between
county officials and the Bengals at the time, Grote wrote, “The only
reason that I can surmise the cozy relationship between the Bengals
through Dornette and their County Commission contact existed was because
I too was approached by Dornette to become ‘part of the future of
Hamilton County’ when he suggested to me at a luncheon at Arnold’s
downtown that they were looking for a second vote on the County
Commission for the stadium sales tax proposal, which at that time
was still lacking.”

Grote continued, “Having previously been
approached by then-Commissioner Bedinghaus with the proposal to
‘revitalize the riverfront’ through the use of a countywide sales tax,
my answer to both him and Dornette was identical: ‘No, thank you’ … the
obvious quid pro quo was that Dornette and his minions could arrange
for a compliant commissioner candidate to receive the requisite support
to be elected.”

Shortly afterward, Republicans appointed Tom
Neyer Jr. to the commission. He provided the second vote for the
plan.

After the stadium debacle, voters ousted
Bedinghaus from office in 2000. He now works for the Bengals as
“director of stadium development,” whatever that is. Neyer chose not to
seek reelection in 2002.

So, if the local Republican Party played
such a crucial role in getting the approvals needed for the stadium, it
should help clean up the mess. Mike Allen was the GOP chairman at
the time, having just succeeded Deters in that post.

Allen is no longer a force in politics,
having left public life due to a sex scandal a few years ago. But his
mentor, Deters, is once again prosecutor and wields the most clout
within the party, regardless of his title.

It’s not like Brown can’t afford to make a
few concessions.

A 2009 analysis of NFL teams by Forbes
magazine placed the Bengals’ value at $953 million. Of that
amount, $110 million — or 12 percent — was directly attributable to
its stadium, it reported.

Another $141 million — or 15 percent —
was attributable to the team’s location in Cincinnati and its market
size.

The vast majority of the team’s value
($645 million, or 68 percent) was attributable to current and future
revenue sharing by larger NFL teams under a plan approved by owners in
March 2006.

Forbes wryly notes just how cheap
Brown is in another article describing the revenue sharing plan.

“Bengals owner Mike Brown was one of only
two NFL owners to vote against the plan (Jaguars owner Mike Weaver was
the other) because he felt he would not get enough money from teams like
the New England Patriots,” Forbes writes. “The irony is that the
Bengals only contributed $50 million to their stadium and have one
of the best deals in all of sports (the team receives virtually all
stadium-related revenues and is not responsible for any of the stadium’s
operating costs), the Patriots financed their stadium without taxpayer
financing.”

Best deal, indeed. The Bengals stopped
paying rent to play in the stadium last year. In the lease’s later
years, Hamilton County will pay the team to play there.

Further, the Bengals get most of the
money generated by holding special events at the stadium, and are
entitled to whatever expensive upgrades are made at other NFL stadiums.

Referring to the bleak forecast for the
stadium account, Mara said, “It’s a very bad deal and it’s only gotten
worse over time. I derive no satisfaction from being right or saying I
told you so.”

To provide a sense of how much Brown has
profited, it’s worth mentioning that his father, Paul Brown, bought
the franchise rights to the team in 1967 for $8 million. Even with
inflation, that’s still a nice return on his investment.

We think he can afford to give up some
revenues, and we think the fiscal-minded Deters is just the man to
persuade him to do it. Get to work, Joe.